Rather sensitive...

[TheCakeIsAlive]

Sunday, I woke up with a sore throat. Usually, this gives me a few days' warning that a cold might develop, but this time it was fully developed within hours. Stuffy to the point of a lovely sinus headache, voice going down half an octave, the works.

Apart from this discomfort, my nose has been incredibly sensitive for the for the first 3 days. At the worst times I have literally sat for hours with eyes watering and breath hitching every few minutes without any relief, until finally my nose gave in and quenched the tickle for a little while with a violent multiple.

Out of the 70 or so sneezes this cold has led to so far, I'd like to pick two occasions to describe in a little more detail.

On Monday, I was working in a room filled with people. This would be one of those situations where sneezing is preferably avoided and if unavoidable, stifled. When the feeling quickly rose to the level of "you-will-sneeze-*now*-and-no-you-don't-get-a-say-in", that was my initial approach. Quickly moving to the side and vaguely shielding my face with my right elbow, I stifled a tickly sneeze. The sound would have been something like 'ehhh...chUHh'. Normally, this works fine when alleviating the tickle is concerned. Not quite this time.

Instead of disappearing, the tickle got worse, quickly leading to a second, third, fourth and even fifth stifle, before I gave up and finally let the sixth one out completely. Even the noisy cluster of people a little way away wasn't quite enough to obscure the sound. It didn't stop the urge at all, just the execution of it.

A few minutes later, I was *sure* another sneeze would happen, and then it got stuck for the next several hours...

The next day, human contact was avoided as much as possible, until dinner came around and the choice was rather limited. The entire time at the dinner table was spent keeping the near-overwhelming urge to sneeze at bay, followed by a slightly hasty retreat as soon as possible. At which point... the sensation backed down to a point of maddening just-not-enough. This situation continued for half an hour, my near-constant attempts to sway it one way or the other completely futile. Finally, my nose gave in and three high-pitched, desperate sneezes barrelled out almost back to back. A few seconds later, my nose protested against the virus once more, in an even more violent fashion than before before settling down again for a little while.

There were a few short fits after that, followed by complete inactivity. Ah well, can't say this cold is lacking in "fun".

[NoV]

Finally, my nose gave in and three high-pitched, desperate sneezes barrelled out almost back to back.

Wow! Love your description here

[flower]

Sorry to hear you're sick, Sigrith, but thanks for sharing the obs with us. My favorite was the first one. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that one!

[atchoum]

Thanks for the detail, Sigrith, especially at a time when you are probably not feeling so great. Self obs rock!

[Spoo]

Mmmm. These obs were deliciously detailed. I hope you feel better, but thank you for sharing.

[count tiszula]

A very lovely self-obs, excellent details of sneezy feelings and surrender! Incidentally, it does rather imply that the best way of minimising attention paid to sneezing is to let the first one out; though for all I know lots of stifles may be more fun for the sneezer. I'm feeling sneezy myself at present, so I suppose I ought to do my own self-obs really.

[sneezefan]

Love the details, especially the first one. Love it when there are a bunch of stifles and then the last one just comes out, loud and clear. Great observation...hope you feel better soon. Thanks for posting.

[blum]

thanks for sharing